Now Romney changes his mind and says Marco Rubio IS being vetted for VP

Early Tuesday ABC News broke a story – confirmed by other outlets — that the Romney campaign wasn’t vetting GOP wunderkind Sen. Marco Rubio. As we noted, it was part of a bad couple of days for Rubio.

Mitt even declined to address the issue when he was pressed on it Tuesday. Noooo, Mitt said. We don’t discuss “the process” of who is being vetted.

But later in the day, perhaps after realizing that a public dis of Rubio might alienate the sliver of the Latino electorate still on the fence about Romney, Mitt changed his mind. Well, changed it from refusing to comment on anything about the VP search to coughing up the only person the campaign has confirmed they are vetting.

“There was a story that originated today apparently at ABC based upon reports of supposedly outside unnamed advisers of mine. I can’t imagine who such people are. But I can tell you this: they know nothing about the vice presidential selection or evaluation process. There are only two people in this country who know who are being vetted and who are not: And that’s Beth Myers and myself. And I know Beth well. She doesn’t talk to anybody. The story was entirely false. Marco Rubio is being thoroughly vetted as part of our process.”

First, my sources stand by what they told me: Before today, Rubio had not been asked by the Romney campaign to turn over any documents related to the vice presidential search and he had not been asked to fill out any questionnaires.

But a top Romney campaign official emphatically told me that Rubio was, in fact, asked for vetting materials before today.

“Your source is lying to you,” the Romney official said.

Now, Rubio is the only candidate that the Romney campaign has definitively said is being vetted.

I am told by several Republican sources that Romney came under intense pressure today from top Republicans who argued it was crazy to take Rubio out of consideration so early. Some argued for Rubio’s appeal as the party’s most effective and charismatic conservative voice. Some argued it is dumb politics to not consider the party’s top Hispanic conservative.

But senior officials of the Romney campaign said emphatically that they were not under pressure from conservatives and that Romney never changed his mind. They insisted that Rubio was always under consideration